Kelowna has the second-highest rate of impaired driving incidents in all of Canada
Three British Columbia cities are in top 10 for highest rates of reported incidents in the country
The City of Kelowna is second to only St. John's, Newfoundland when it comes to the rate of police-reported impaired driving incidents in Canada, according to a new report from Statistics Canada.
The numbers show three cities in British Columbia are in the top ten for the highest rates of reported incidents in the country: Victoria has the fourth highest rate and Abbotsford-Mission, the eighth.
The numbers come from census data broken down by metropolitan areas. It rates the number of incidents per 100,000 people.
B.C. as a whole has a rate of 249 incidents per 100,000 people. That's higher than the national average of 201 but not the highest in the country.
Saskatchewan is the province with the highest rate overall (575), while the Yukon and the Northwest Territories have much higher rates than every other province.
Numbers high, but declining year-over-year
While Kelowna, Victoria and Abbotsford-Mission have had consistently high rates of police-reported impaired driving for the past five years, the numbers are declining.
Kathy Aucoin, with the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics at Statistics Canada, said year-over-year, the rates are dropping.
"When I look at Kelowna, the numbers have dropped two per cent since 2006. And just between 2014 and 2015, there's been a drop of 17 per cent in rates," said Aucoin, who added it's a similar trend for Victoria and Abbotsford-Mission.
She said as a whole, the rate in British Columbia has also decreased.
"So, though B.C's numbers are high, there has been a year-over-year decline."
Drug-impaired driving on the rise
The report also breaks down the types of impaired driving and finds that while the number of alcohol-impaired driving incidents has been decreasing, the number of drug-impaired driving incidents has increased since 2009. Drug-impaired incidents now make up about four per cent of all impaired driving incidents.
Other trends highlighted by the Statistics Canada report: while men account for about 80 per cent of impaired drivers charged by police in Canada, the proportion of females charged has increased over the last three decades.
The report also found that although individuals with a healthy lifestyle were less likely to report driving after drinking, people who play team sports are more likely to drink and drive.
About half of all impaired driving incidents happen on the weekend, according to Statistics Canada, with one-quarter of them taking place on Saturdays.